


Last Love Lost

by sexywiddlebaby



Category: Banana Bus Squad
Genre: Angst, Funeral, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 07:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13119171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sexywiddlebaby/pseuds/sexywiddlebaby
Summary: It's an unfairly hard day for Brock.For Sips.[023] [Secret Santa]





	Last Love Lost

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning: contains reference to a dead character.
> 
> Well this is totally not the Christmas spirit, but I wish anyone reading this a pleasant festive season.

Brock’s eyes were watery and stinging. He looked blankly into space, thinking of nothing, and trying not to lose the last threads of composure holding him together. His pupils would shake every time the vicar paused for breath. This wasn’t exactly how Brock intended to spend a fine summer’s day: trapped in a dusty and paling church, listening to a eulogy of one of his best friends, and being alone for the first time.

Brock deliberately sat by himself, occupying the end of a rotten pew, so that some outside air could wash across him. The other people at the service were family members he’d never met, and distant friends from earlier parts of life. It sickened him to even look at them.

Focused only on himself, Brock didn’t hear the creak of the church doors, the closing of a Bible and the clatter of shoes as people filed away. Suddenly, the building was as vacant as he was. Air drifted from behind him, and crows cawed barely within earshot. How would he carry on now?

A warm and firm hand grasped Brock’s shoulder.

“Jesus!” Brock said, moving away to stop his eyeballs leaping out of his head. His voice almost broke. “Watch it, dude!”

“Brock,” the man said. His voice was deep, calm and smooth. “Sorry for creepin’ up on you like that. Can I have a word?”

Brock nodded curtly. The man’s fingertips ghosted off him, and the pew squeaked to accustom for extra weight. Brock noticed the man looks pretty well off; out of his peripheral vision he recognised an expensive brand of black tuxedo, a thin cotton undershirt, and a vibrant blue sprig of periwinkles poking out of his chest pocket.

“I know how much he meant to you, Brock.”

Brock turned bitterly towards him. “Do you really? Do you know how I tore myself apart every day for him? Every fucking day after he stopped responding to my texts? When he said he didn’t love me anymore? I don’t even know who you are.”

“Forgive me. I’m Anthony. I was his boyfriend before all of this happened.” He smiled patiently at Brock.

“Oh,” Brock spat, “so you’re the guy he left me for.”

“Brock. I don’t want to fight with you. Any man that won his heart I have respect for. That includes you.”

Brock let out a heavy sigh, and wiped his eyes with his sweaty palms. He waited for Anthony to say something – anything that would progress the conversation – but they were both silent. Anthony shuffled closer to Brock, and let his drier and steadier hand hold him.

“What happened, Brock?”

Brock grit his teeth. In between tears, he managed to recount the last night they had as a couple. It started as sweet as any other night. Brock detected nothing out of the ordinary as he crawled out of bed and shut his alarm off.

He brushed his teeth, and Lucas squeezed past to use the shower. When Brock was done, he went to the kitchen and made them both coffee. They chatted about plans for Valentine’s Day and the comics Lucas had been drawing. It progressed into an hour-long interview, with Brock questioning why Lucas had drawn a dragon with three wings, and how much money Brock would need to pay before he could get access to an early copy. Lucas laughed and told him it would be free, of course.

As the afternoon set in, they walked around a local park, hand-in-hand. Lucas would point out a dog every time he saw one (and Brock would have to tell him that no, he wasn’t allowed to steal it), and they came to a stop at a weathered bench that overlooked a beautifully still pond. Brock had a bobble hat on and thick woollen gloves, which Lucas envied, and would subtly try to take off every few minutes. Lucas meanwhile was buried under a ridiculously long scarf, and his cheeks and tips of his ears went rosy with laughter at Brock’s dry puns.

The darkness swept in early, and they retreated to a small convenience store to escape the unforgiving cold. Brock directed Lucas down the chilled goods aisle, and made an effort to compare Lucas to every single milk carton he could find. Some of them were too small, others too skinny, and then they settled on a red-topped pint that reminded Brock of Lucas’ radiant smile. Lucas went to use the bathroom as Brock paid for their shop.

But when Brock checked on him ten minutes later, nobody was using the bathroom at all. Brock desperately checked every corner of the shop. Maybe Lucas had fallen into a pile of cereal boxes and needed excavating out, or perhaps he was buried underneath a ton of tinned tomatoes. He left the shop twenty minutes later, and punched Lucas’ number in reluctantly. It went to answerphone once, twice, three times… _pick up, you fucking idiot._

Brock threw his door keys at the kitchen table and flicked all the lights on in the house, checking their laundry closet, under the sheets; even in the cupboards that Lucas would have to snap in half to fit inside. He pounded his fist into the bedroom wall and bruised it.

The next day, and the next week, and the next month came and went. Brock laid on their bed, with one of the few pieces of Lucas’ laundry he had left. He hugged it and glanced at his phone. Still nothing. All three hundred of his calls had been used up until the holidays. Lucas’ smell faded into a distant memory.

And finally, it was a year later. Brock stood outside of the same store, determined to find answers. He was thinner and rather sickly as he navigated around the fresh fruit and baked breads. He stopped when he reached the dairy section, and inspected the shelf carefully. Blue-topped, green-topped and gold-topped milk gleamed back at him. There was a bottle-sized row missing. A small placard read: ‘Sold Out’.

Anthony offered his condolences when Brock leaned against him to cry. Betrayed by the person he loved the most. Anthony rubbed Brock’s back and affirmed that everything was going to be okay.

It took them ten minutes to leave the church together. Brock looked like a skeleton: frail, withered and emotionless. Anthony led them away from the graveyard and sat down on an unkempt grass patch. He patted the floor several times, and Brock grudgingly accepted the offer.

Amber light streamed over the crest of the winding hills in front of them and the skies had just turned candyfloss pink. Anthony ducked his head and smiled. Brock searched Anthony’s face for answers.

“Anthony?”

“I suppose I should really tell you what happened, huh? You’ve been in the dark for too long.”

“Please…” Brock spluttered. “Tell me he was okay.”

“Lucas didn’t want to leave you, Brock. The truth is, he left you that night out of fear. When he went to the bathroom at the store, he got a call. A nasty voice on the other end told him that he was going to die, and that the only way he would be spared, was to leave you.

“He was given a choice: lose his life, or lose yours. He couldn’t bear to imagine what you would have done if you knew about it. He saw each and every one of those calls you left him, Brock. He smashed his phone after he couldn’t bear the thought of you trying to contact him more.”

“I- I don’t understand…who threatened him?”

Anthony sighed. “You won’t like this answer. It was a stranger, Brock. A stranger had walked past the both of you whilst you were at the park, spotted you together, and swiped Lucas’ phone from right under the both of you. That stranger read your private messages, found your address, and bugged the phone before Lucas found it on the floor a few hours later, assuming that it fell out of his pocket.

“They would know if Lucas tried to contact you, and the bug meant that stranger could trace Lucas’ location whenever they wanted. His only option for both of your safeties was to run the hell away.”

A cloud of disbelief hung in the air all around them. Brock was shaken and couldn’t take Anthony seriously. He looked at Anthony, expecting a sarcastic smile, a laugh, anything – but all he got was a paltry grimace.

Brock settled his gaze back to his shoes, and brought his knees up to his chest. Without moving, he asked: “Was he happy in the end?”

“I promise you, he was. He found a good job as a barista, then moved into college again, and eventually he wound up directing some amateur student films. He was passionate about those right to his last day. He graduated a few years later, and worked in freelance editing for the rest of his time–”

“How can you…talk about him so easily? Does it not upset you that he’s gone?”

“Well, I…I miss him dearly every day, but the worst of that passed. My memories of him are more of a happy thing than a reminder that he’s gone.”

Brock laughed discordantly. “I wish I could say the same.”

“You’ll get there, buck. Give yourself time.”

“I know that…I’m just so angry. I would have killed that bitch. I would have been able to protect Lucas. I can’t accept that he didn’t trust me enough for that.”

Anthony shook his head. “He knew you could have.”

“Then why would he leave if not for some other reason? I don’t get it, Anthony. I wish he was here to explain it to me in his giant scarf.”

“I don’t know, Brock. But I know that he always loved you. It’s why I wanted to meet you – to see the guy he could never stop talking about so fondly. And he described you pretty well, too.”

Brock relaxed a little. “Look, Anthony, thank you for this. But I can’t be here anymore.”

And Anthony watched Brock shuffle away to the parking lot, climb in his car, and start the engine. The car, however, didn’t move. So Anthony followed, and sat in the passenger seat without invitation, turning the ignition to kill the engine and then he wiped Brock’s waterfall of tears away.

“It hurts,” Brock whimpered with a hoarse voice. “I miss him so much.”


End file.
